I mean, I don’t really ‘write’ songs – they just kind of appear. It took me three years to write the piece, and because its not only the children’s poetry I used, but portions of the Scriptures, so the experience itself was an incredibly worthwhile journey, but not an easy journey. I mean, that was the central question to the whole of the oratorio – where is God in those times? And what do we do with that issue? The experience for me was a long one, and a very arduous one, and not an easy one at all. I was so touched by the poems, and I just wanted to somehow address the whole thing of the situation in which the children found themselves, and relate it to the whole human experience of what do we do in those times, and where is God in those times. Have you got a few hours? (laughter) It was something that took me totally by surprise, because I was not looking to write anything, and somebody gave me this book of poetry. JH:Ĭan you speak to the general experience of composing this oratorio? Ruth spoke with Vallum regarding the oratorio, her experiences and the role of children in art. Since then, the Oratorio has been performed worldwide, harnessing the talents of young musicians to bring the poetry of Terezin to a new audience. This, amongst with other surviving poetry, forms the basis of the poetry collection I Never Saw Another Butterfly (Schocken, 2004).Ĭanadian violinist Ruth Fazal was given a copy of I Never Saw Another Butterfly and was so moved by the text that she resolved to put them to music, creating the Oratorio Terezin.
Dicker-Brandeis, herself a victim of Auschwitz, concealed the work of her students in two suitcases. Very few of these children survived the war. A large percentage of the camp’s inmates were artists, professors, jurists, writers, musicians and scientists, intentionally placed there to conduct cultural projects, such as concerts and plays, to create an acceptable face for the Holocaust for international scrutiny.Īll inmates were required to work, but through the ingenuity of people like art teacher Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, the approximately 15,000 children interned in Terezin continued to receive an education and learnt to express themselves creatively in response to the horror around them.
Presented to the outside world as a model Jewish settlement, Terezin served as a deportation camp for Auschwitz and a forced labour camp. In 1940, the fortress and garrison city of Terezin fell into Nazi hands, and was converted into a concentration camp within a year. Vallum Magazine interviewed Ruth Fazal in 2008, after the performances of Oratorio Terezin at the ‘Place des Arts’ in Montreal, Canada.
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